Pioneering Air Squad paramedic Jeff Langley remembered

PACOIMA -- They called him the "Cowboy Firefighter" for his love of horses and rodeo roping.

But the firefighters who knew Jeff Langley best also remembered him Thursday as a hero of the skies above and the rushing waters below.

Langley, a Los Angeles County paramedic firefighter, helped pioneer the development of helicopter-assisted, swiftwater-rescue tactics that are used worldwide, two decades after his death in the line of duty.

During a ceremony at the county Fire Department air operations facility in Pacoima, Fire Chief Daryl Osby said Langley left a legacy as a pioneering Air Squad paramedic.

"It was important to hold this ceremony not just to remember Jeff because he passed way in the line of duty, but also to reinforce his contributions to this organization's urban search and rescue techniques," Osby said as he stood in front of a helicopter perched atop a 50 foot tall training tower, one of Langely's ideas.

Langley died on March 30, 1993 when he fell from the skid of his helicopter after he helped rescue an injured hiker in a remote part of Topanga State Park. Langley, 28, was helping retrieve equipment that had been left at the steep rescue site when the accident occurred.

Those who honored him Thursday said Langley, who was assigned to Air Squad 8, was part of a group of county fire personnel who pioneered the development of "Helo-Swiftwater Rescue" procedures and equipment, after a series of disastrous floods that struck Southern California in 1992 and 1993.

Langley's mother, Karen Langley-Stephen, said she was touched to receive a call that her son was being honored.

In addition to duties as a firefighter paramedic, she said her son also was a champion skier who taught the sport to the blind. He also visited burn victims and had hoped to start a therapeutic horse riding program for children with special needs, Langley-Stephen said.

"Jeff carried a little piece of paper in his wallet with the last part of a poem," Langley-Stephen said.

The last lines of the poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson reads: To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

"This is a celebration of a life well lived because he lived a full life in 28 years," Langley-Stephen said. "Jeff was known best as a hardworker, a great storyteller and a good friend. He always challenged himself."

His Fire Department partner, Lane Contreras, said he was privileged to have worked alongside Langley.

"He left this department a better place," Contreras said.

Raphael Ortiz, also a firefighter paramedic, said Langley always worked to raise the standards of rescue operations.

Los Angeles County Battalion Chief Larry Collins said the techniques that Langley helped pioneer are now in use around the world by the global rescue community. An international award that bares Langley's name will be given this year to the New York Fire Department for its swiftwater rescue work used to save people during Hurricane Sandy.

Collins said Langley's spirit remains with firefighters who come from all over California to train at the Pacoima center under the guidelines the young firefighter paramedic helped to develop.

"He sees these helicopters when they take off and he sees them when they come home," Collins said.